A superior hulless barley coleoptile was produced for all four hulless barley genotypes when the palea and lemma remained intact (Figure 2). The husk, therefore, is likely to be important in the development of a healthy coleoptile resulting in sound plant emergence and establishment. It is likely that the husk is acting as a protective barrier against embryo damage. Coleoptile lengths were shorter for ‘Visually Whole Embryo’ than ‘Husk Intact’ which suggests that it will be difficult to avoid any embryo damage despite our modifications to harvest and seed cleaning procedures. Despite the ‘Broken Grain – Embryo Intact’ classification producing the shortest mean coleoptile length, all coleoptiles were healthy. Under field conditions these broken grains should emerge and establish healthy plants. However, depth of sowing would need to be carefully monitored. Short, ‘weak’ coleoptiles were observed for all four hulless barley genotypes for ‘Slightly Damaged Embryo’ and ‘Moderately Damaged Embryo’ classifications. Namoi was the only genotype that we observed germination and coleoptile growth for the ‘Badly Damaged Embryo’ classification. As expected seed viability for all genotypes for these three ‘Damage Embryo’ classifications was very low (Figure 3). The embryo damage appeared to contribute to an increased frequency of ‘abnormal’ coleoptiles. Under field conditions it is highly unlikely that these ‘abnormal’ coleoptile would emerge.